Science, Engineering and Technology

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 10:10 am on 18 June 1993.

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Photo of Dr Mo Mowlam Dr Mo Mowlam , Redcar 10:10, 18 June 1993

I am responsible for science and technology in the shadow Cabinet. I also shadow the Minister's responsibilities for the civil service, open government and a range of issues. I believe, although it is not often apparent in the Government, that we should delegate and work as a team. We have to ask, if the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) wants to get personal, why the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) left and why he wanted to spend more time on his German lessons than in the Department. We believe in delegation and working together. Yes, there is a voice in the shadow Cabinet on science and technology, but I believe in sharing duties with other Front-Bench colleagues.

A number of Conservative Members nodded in agreement with my point about the Office of Science and Technology. We believe that it should play a co-ordinating and leading role. I do not believe that the White Paper delivers that. The Ministry of Defence is a prime example. There is no mention of "Forward Look" in the White Paper's chapter on the Ministry of Defence. The Government have said that there will be a Government strategy for the better utilisation of defence research and development and for diverting resources from defence to increased civilian spend.

Where is that in the White Paper? Of the many Government documents I have read, the section dealing with the Ministry of Defence strikes me as a blatant example of the Ministry of Defence parachuting in the paragraphs that it wants. without the co-ordination and lead that we had hoped would be forthcoming from the Minister responsible for the OST.

The Minister said that he has ensured greater co-ordination between Departments. In that connection, the LINK programme is emphasised in the White Paper. Supposedly, it has increased the responsibility of the OST by being moved from the DTI. The OST should be undertaking such co-ordination, but, if we examine the detail of the White Paper, it becomes clear that the programme still reports jointly to the two Departments. That is another example of the OST not having the power or bottle. If the Minister doubts that, I refer him to a written question on Wednesday. The answer states: The Department of Trade and Industry, like other participating Departments, uses money from its overall research and development budget to support LINK programmes and projects where these provide a way of meeting departmental objectives."—[Official Report, 16 June 1993; Vol. 226, c. 583.] Clearly, the administration has come to the OST, but the meat of the project remains with the DTI. There are many bold statements in the White Paper, but none of the necessary mechanisms. In that sense, it is not really a - White Paper because it does not contain the necessary mechanisms to deliver the science and technology policy that we all want.

As the Minister is not happy with that argument, I cite another example to support my point. Let us consider Technology Foresight. As I said, we welcome many parts of the White Paper, and the Technology Foresight programme is one of them. We are pleased that the practices followed by our technologically advanced companies, which are already followed by our competitors, are to become part of our forward planning. We are also pleased that the Government have got out of the ideological cleft stick of believing that such a programme would be seen as picking winners. I am pleased that the Minister has managed to jump that hurdle and is satisfied that Technology Foresight will point the way forward for industry.

The Government's problem with Technology Foresight is that, although many reports will be circulated, having Technology Foresight will not in itself deliver the necessary changes. We need mechanisms to involve industry to ensure that new technologies will result, but they are lacking. Although, because of time constraints, I do not want to get involved in arguments about why the public sector borrowing requirement is so high or about the economic problems that the Government have created, I accept what the Minister said. We are not arguing that a great deal more money needs to be thrown at the problem, but unless we resource and fund development programmes, what is the point of having Technology Foresight? Without the necessary funding and the mechanisms to involve industry to ensure that the new technologies are delivered, Technology Foresight will do nothing more than circulate good ideas.

It may be apposite to remind the House that while the Chancellor was launching Technology Foresight on the country, the President of the Board of Trade was closing the advanced technology programmes that were supposed to develop the technologies of the future. Is that Technology Foresight in practice?

What new technologies does the aerospace industry think are required? It produced a report calling on the Government to support some joint technological ventures. The DTI response was to ignore and suppress the report. We welcome the general ideas, but we are worried that the OST lacks influence and that the mechanisms do not exist to develop those ideas.

I believe that the same problem applies to the section of the White Paper dealing with near-market research. Submission after submission to the Chancellor during the consultation period called for a change of heart on near-market research. I think that it was Sir John Fairclough, the architect of the policy, who eventually acknowledged that it had not been working all along.

What does the White Paper say about near-market research? Paragraph 2.20 states: the Government recognises that circumstances can arise where market forces do not work in a satisfactory manner". At least we have got that clear; the market alone cannot deliver. Paragraph 2.22 tells us that there is a general presumption that near-market work will continue to be funded by the private sector, but, where that approach breaks down, careful account must be taken of the circumstances of each individual case. I should have more faith in the Government's ability to make a commitment to near-market research if the Chancellor made it clear who or what would be funded. The White Paper presents no criteria.

We and industry need to know whether there will be any avenues of support from the Chancellor's office or from the DTI for near-market research and development other than existing schemes or, as with Technology Foresight, are we to have only window dressing rather than the concrete specifics that will make a difference to science and technology?

I deal now with the advisory bodies announced in the White Paper and which the Minister dealt with this morning, and especially the roles of the Advisory Council on Science and Technology and the Advisory Board for the Research Councils. He said that ACOST is to be replaced by a Council for Science and Technology chaired by the Chancellor, and ABRC is to be wound up and subsumed into the OST. Before the Chancellor says, as he tried to do earlier, that that is what the Labour party wants, let me make it clear to him what changes we believe would have been workable and, in view of the Minister's "open government", would have been more successful in informing the scientific community and others.

ACOST often criticised the Government because it recognised the limits that the Government put on the future of science in this country. What was the Government's response? They internalised the committee and put the Minister in the chair. Ministers disliked the ABRC because it criticised the level of spending on the science base, and the Chancellor's predecessors suppressed some of its reports because they did not like the tone. What happened to the two committees? The ABRC is to be replaced by a Director-General of Research Councils and his expert group of external advisers. The Minister has gone from accountability to anonymity in one leap.

We want a solution offering a bit of both worlds. We happily acknowledge that the A BRC needs to be abolished because resource allocation should be carried out internally, but the role of the Council for Science and Technology should be to make recommendations on the science budget to the OST and to hold the Chancellor and the director-general accountable for their actions. That cannot be done by a council to be chaired by the Chancellor himself. It is the lack of openness which worries us. If some hon. Members want to check, I refer them to Wednesday's edition of Hansard. In column 608 of the written answers, it is made clear that the Minister will not encourage the necessary openness.

The part of the document dealing with international subscriptions was also welcomed by the sections of industry listed by the Minister. However, the White Paper must be read carefully at this stage. We are told that the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council will not have to cope entirely within its own grant-in-aid with short term variations in international subscriptions. We welcome that, because short-term variations and currency fluctuations are a problem. It becomes clear from a closer reading of the document, however, that that will apply not just to one committee but to the entire set-up. In future, therefore, when the Government's economic policy goes awry, the whole scientific community—rather than just one committee, as in the past—will be angry. Many in the scientific community will not welcome that development.

The Opposition have long regarded the attitude to European Community funding as scandalous. This is another respect in which the Minister and the OST are not strong enough to deliver the kind of future that we seek for science and technology. The dead hand of the Treasury is very much in evidence in the relevant part of the White Paper: The system of attributing the cost of Community expenditure to Departments has given Departments a clear incentive to seek value for money from Community programmes. We are interested in getting value for money from different programmes, but the practice of attribution has been universally condemned because it has removed much of the added value that could be gained from the finance from European programmes. The White Paper's reference to attribution will clearly please those who are worried about what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will do, but if we are seeking value for money from the available financial resources for scientific programmes for the good of the future of science and the nation, this is not the way to achieve it.

I shall not go into the question of PhDs and MSCs in view of the time and the number of hon. Members wishing to speak. I am sure that others will touch on that subject.

The Minister referred to the importance of university education. In addition to 18 to 24-year-olds, however, we must consider those who are still at school. As part of the changes in the national curriculum announced by the Secretary of State for Education recently, it is proposed to remove technology from the list of foundation subjects that are subject to testing—simply because the quality of technology tests has been criticised and because they have been likened to what happens on "Blue Peter" with toilet rolls, egg cartons and the like.